Pubdate: Sun, 23 Sep 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Thomas E. Ricks and Steven Mufson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism)

IN WAR ON TERRORISM, UNSEEN FRONTS MAY BE CRUCIAL

As the buildup of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region gathers 
steam, the Bush administration is pursuing its war on terrorism along 
less traditional fronts as well, moving to freeze terrorists' assets, 
pressuring their state supporters through diplomacy and putting in 
motion covert operations against their networks.

The visible military operations and the other, less observable, 
actions promise to be the two sides of this war. They will make it 
less like traditional wars the United States has fought and, in many 
respects, more like the war against drugs that the country has been 
pursuing for at least two decades, military experts said.

Like the war on drugs, it will be long. It will rely less on 
conventional weaponry and more on special operations raids, covert 
attacks and entirely nonmilitary means. Indeed, the less observable 
realms of intelligence, finance, diplomacy and computer warfare may 
prove to be the major arenas of the effort, with military operations 
in a supporting role that will steal the headlines but tell only part 
of the story.

"It's closer to the type of complexity in controlling international 
drugs than [it is to] Desert Storm," said retired Gen. Barry 
McCaffrey, who led the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division against 
Iraqi forces in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago and later headed 
the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill 
Clinton. "It requires an interagency effort by the Defense, Justice 
and State [departments]."

The diffuse, complex nature of the administration's emerging strategy 
for combating terrorism also points to the likely tactics it will use 
- - and on its ultimate targets, according to military experts.

"Nobody believes that the way to fight the war on drugs is to 
concentrate on the hapless mule who carries cocaine through an 
airport," said Richard Perle, a policy strategist in the Pentagon 
during the Reagan administration. Likewise, he said, in the war 
against terrorism "you go after the source. You go after the 
producers, the big fish. And the equivalent of the producers, the 
drug lords, are not the terrorists but the countries that harbor 
them."

President Bush has made clear that the administration's initial focus 
will likely be accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But the 
most important target in this war - what military theorists call the 
enemy's "center of gravity" - could prove to be the governments that 
give sanctuary to terrorists, rather than the terrorists themselves, 
specialists in military planning said.

There is every indication that the war will start - or has started - 
in Afghanistan, where bin Laden has based his operations since 1996. 
Although the Pentagon refuses to comment on covert operations, there 
were rumblings in the Defense Department last week that a 
counteroffensive was already under way. Indeed, the Taliban militia 
claimed yesterday to have shot down an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance 
drone over Afghanistan. The Pentagon had no comment on the report.

The military action in Afghanistan, both covert and overt, is likely 
to rely heavily on intelligence and operations by U.S. Special 
Forces. "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine," 
one Defense Department official said. "I think it is going to put us 
to the test in many ways."

If the Persian Gulf War was more like football, with its lengthy 
buildup and diagrammed maneuvers, this war likely will resemble 
soccer, with its fluidity and improvisation. It will be a difficult 
sort of war to command, execute and analyze, military experts 
predict. "It is going to require a different mind-set," said one 
officer involved in planning for it.

Officials say that although there eventually could be military action 
in places other than Afghanistan, the administration has yet to 
decide on those plans. To give the Pentagon more flexibility, 
however, the administration has deployed aircraft carriers, a Marine 
expeditionary unit and scores of warplanes to the region. In an 
unprecedented move, some aircraft are being sent to Uzbekistan and 
Tajikistan, two of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

If the military component in the administration's war against 
terrorism is only half the battle, the other half will include 
financial, economic, law enforcement, domestic security, diplomatic 
and intelligence elements, officials said. And their desired effect 
will be psychological as well as tactical.

"Now we have a clear enemy who is not only trying to do us great 
damage, but is also trying to terrorize us . . . to paralyze us by 
terrorizing us," said Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. trade 
representative who was a senior aide to Secretary of State James A. 
Baker III during the Gulf War. "Our response has to counter fear and 
panic."

Here is how some facets of the struggle are taking shape:

On the diplomatic front, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has 
reached out to European allies, Arab nations, China and Russia in an 
effort to isolate Afghanistan and make it difficult for bin Laden to 
find refuge. The United Arab Emirates severed relations with the 
Taliban, and Iran and Pakistan sealed their borders.

Powell has also reached out to sometime foes - such as Syria and Iran 
- - urging them to abandon their past policies of supporting terrorist 
groups. While asserting that they had no illusions about the chances 
for such changes, Powell and Bush have indicated to the two countries 
that now would be a chance for a new start.

On the economic front, the administration has sought to use trade and 
aid to offer incentives to wavering nations and assurance to friends. 
It moved last week to lift U.S. sanctions on Pakistan that had been 
imposed because of displeasure with Islamabad's nuclear weapons 
program. And it held out the possibility of throwing U.S. support 
behind the rescheduling of talks that were already moving forward on 
Pakistan's more than $30 billion in debt if it withdraws its support 
from the Taliban and helps the U.S. war effort.

The administration also bolstered trade ties with Indonesia, the 
world's largest Muslim nation, whose president, Megawati 
Sukarnoputri, made a previously scheduled visit to Washington to see 
Bush. Indonesia, a moderate Muslim country, has been used as a base 
by terrorist networks in the past.

On the financial front, the United States is looking for help from 
Europe, where many of the hijackers in the Sept. 11 suicide attacks 
on New York and Washington had lived, schooled or transited on their 
way to the United States. Several European allies, including Britain, 
Italy, Germany and Spain, have seized bank accounts suspected of 
being linked to bin Laden or other terrorist organizations.

Bush is expected to take the next step Monday by signing an executive 
order designating some individuals and groups as terrorist and 
freezing their assets.

The administration is also trying to get better intelligence 
information on the bin Laden network. China agreed to send an 
interagency group of counterterrorism experts to share information. 
The administration is also pressuring Pakistan, which is considered 
the country with the best intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden, 
to cooperate.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf 
states - home to financial backers and recruits for terrorist 
networks - could also provide useful information to the United 
States. Some of those countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, have 
not been completely forthcoming in the past, some U.S. officials say. 
Saudi Arabia pledged its support in the investigation of this month's 
attacks and has already delivered dossiers on some individuals as 
requested by the FBI.

It will be difficult to measure the success of these different 
approaches. And it is likely to be equally difficult to tell when the 
war is over.

Asked to define "victory" in the war against terrorism last week, 
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had difficulty coming up with a 
concise answer. After 500 words of hovering, he landed on his 
definition. "I say that victory is persuading the American people and 
the rest of the world that this is not a quick matter that is going 
to be over in a month or a year or even five years," he said.

McCaffrey, a veteran of the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the drug 
war, said the answer was probably more like New York City's 
successful war on crime. "At the end of the day, you have to ask a 
mom whether she feels safe going out with her children," he said. "If 
she answers no, then you haven't done the job.
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MAP posted-by: Josh